the corner office

If I tried to turn these into posts it would take another week...

Tech:

• VMWare Server is free. That sounds pretty cool, but how does Server differ from Workstation, which isn't free? Can you fire up a Notes client or MS Office in a VMWare Server session?
• An express version of IBM DB2 is also free. This is also a cool thing, but who's the target market? Will open-source RDBMS users make the change? I'm not sure. Will lots of would-be SQL Server users make the change? I've always thought of DB2 admins as the kinda dudes who wore pocket protectors. Big tin and no sunlight five floors below the basement in a bank somewhere. DB2 and SMBs should be a decent marriage. Is there much of that currently? Will there be more?
• Those poor buggers: Borland are saying OKBye to JBuilder et al. Eclipse: the open-source IDE that out-cooled everything else. Aka Creative Destruction: it ain't pretty.

Politics:

• The Google China censorship isn't cool. But how is Google different to any other Western corporate that does business with China?
• Thabo Mbeki hasn't said anything inflammatory about the Cartoon saga because like most people, he just hopes it'll go away. Insulting someone's religion is a bit like insulting their music: no matter how justified it might be, they're going to think you're an asshole, and this is why politicians and public figures never diss music and always act like they give a shit about relijun. That ain't cool, but that's the way it is.
• Commentary just got two links because even if I heartily disagree with lots of their content, they are the political blog in SA. One of the few places where people from across the spectrum duke it out, usually civilly. They are cool, and they'll deserve another good placing in the 2006 SA Blog Awards.

Personal:

• The rain this morning was insane. I love rain, and I love really heavy rain even more, ergo, it was cool.
• If we have lots more rain over the next few days that would be cool too.
• I wanted to cancel my cell phone contract and move to prepaid. My contract expired ages ago, but the bastards still want me to go through a 90 day notice period. I got very indignant but came home and read my contract, signed 6 years ago, and there it was in black and white. Rule 1: read the fine print. Rule 2: avoid Nashua Mobile if a 90 day notice period is an issue for you. In fact, avoid them anyway, because one of the managers was supposed to phone me back and never bothered. So Nashua Mobile are not cool.
• We watched Serenity last week. It was orders of magnitude more cool than normal cool.